In the last chapter of Parenting with Wisdom, my mom outlines a process for thinking through problems, er, opportunities we face with our children. She establishes that putting off behavior isn’t sufficient; we must replace bad behavior with good behavior. She also establishes that simply replacing behavior without a change of heart or mind is [...]
Filed under: Introspection, Uncategorized, Wisdom
One of the topics that I’ve been interested in has been the challenge of teaching humility. This is a trait I feel unqualified to teach, although I smile since I’m probably just as unqualified to teach humility as any fruit of the spirit. How does a fellow sinner teach humility? I’m still learning. One of [...]
Filed under: Humility
The other day I was feeling ashamed because I had been critical in the course of a conversation. The Lord brought to mind several passages that I’ve been thinking about and trying to put into practice. A lady I used to ride to church with had an admirable trait of knowing something good about everyone. [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized, Wisdom
We had a quick trip to visit my parents and all of our siblings and their families. We’re thankful for the heritage of parents and siblings who enjoy talking about God, who are committed to teaching their children to love God, and who are a lot of fun to be with, too. While we were [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized
I have a friend who has a young daughter who loves to dress up like a princess. The other day she related her concern that her daughter’s attitude while pretending tended to be self focussed, like a princess. My friend explained that a godly princess is someone who serves others. When her daughter wanted to [...]
Filed under: Humility
When I was a teenager, I heard many complaints from other teenagers about their monthly cycle. My mom gave a different perspective that has stayed with me, explaining that God created women’s hormones to fluctuate on purpose. For example, women tend to be more creative some weeks than others. The emotions that seem to surge [...]
Filed under: Introspection, Uncategorized
Biblical wisdom isn’t knowing how to make half a dozen young children stand in a straight line, and sit in their chairs quietly while you get your hair cut. Wisdom isn’t the same thing as good advice from a godly friend. Biblical wisdom comes from God’s Word. In fact, Jesus reminds us that a wise [...]
Filed under: Communication and Meaning, Wisdom
Sometimes in the mornings, I read the Bible to my children. Last week, I decided that I wanted to focus on wisdom, and I got a good idea. I had some old posterboard that I pulled out and I drew three columns, labeling each column: wise, simple, foolish. Since King Solomon said that finding wisdom [...]
Filed under: Communication and Meaning, Wisdom
Today I asked David what he learned in children’s church. Try as I could, I could not get an answer out of him. I asked him whether he was being a wise listener. He insisted he listened, but he could not remember a single detail about what happened. It is possible that fatigue had something [...]
Filed under: Attention, Using Questions
I had a server glitch this morning, and I just realized that somehow in the process of resolving it, I lost a week of posts. I’m not quite sure what has happened, but maybe I can get my extremely handsome military IT guy (aka the bug crusher extraordinare, also known as my spouse) to look [...]
Filed under: Uncategorized
